May 27, 2008

I've been meaning to do another vlog about me and my Kindle. (Here's the original one.) The truth is, I hardly ever touch the damned thing.

(But please, if you buy one, buy it through this link so I can get a percentage of the $359 purchase price. And I'm saying that mainly to prompt some skepticism about rave reviews of the Kindle you might be reading in blog posts with Amazon Associates links like that in them. So if you appreciate that little lesson in skepticism, but still want to buy a Kindle, reward me by using my link.)

I've always thought my problem with the Kindle was the gray-on-gray screen — think Etch-a-Sketch — the one the rave reviews say is "easy on the eyes." Yes, and a room with dimmed lights is easy on the eyes, but it's a bad place to read. I want contrast: black letters on a white background. I want that in a book, and I want that in a computer screen, so of course, I want that in an electronic book. I want easy to read.

Books ... give off special smells. According to a recent survey of French students, 43 percent consider smell to be one of the most important qualities of printed books—so important that they resist buying odorless electronic books. CaféScribe, a French on-line publisher, is trying to counteract that reaction by giving its customers a sticker that will give off a fusty, bookish smell when it is attached to their computers.

I know. You're thinking: The French! But focus, people. The entire sensory experience of a book is important.

There's the feel too:

When I read an old book, I hold its pages up to the light and often find among the fibers of the paper little circles made by drops from the hand of the vatman as he made the sheet—or bits of shirts and petticoats that failed to be ground up adequately during the preparation of the pulp. I once found a fingerprint of a pressman enclosed in the binding of an eighteenth-century Encyclopédie—testimony to tricks in the trade of printers, who sometimes spread too much ink on the type in order to make it easier to get an impression by pulling the bar of the press.

Okay, I know. You're thinking, that guy is way more of an aesthete than I even want to be, and if I want some smells and feels — I'll have sex, not grope a book. (I'm talking about you, not me. I will grope an Apple computer.)

"Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell... musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is... it has no texture, no context. It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible. It should be, um... smelly."

Here is a horrible backlit photo of a random woman who interrupted us to tell us how much she absolutely loved her Kindle. Both Ann and I told her she was nuts.

ADDED NOTE TO READERS WHO ARE HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING THIS POST: I've added boldface and enlarged some print in the original post, which was apparently a tad subtle. Let me be sledgehammer clear. The stuff about smell is humor. My problem with the Kindle was AND IS the gray-on-gray screen. I want contrast: black letters on a white background. I want that in a book, and I want that in a computer screen, and of course, I want that in an electronic book. I want easy to read. I don't want to read ugly gray-on-gray print. Get it?

112 comments:

I don't like reading anything long, on a screen. A book is a much more flexible object for the way I like to relax for reading. Been doing ita certain way for a very long time and I don't see that changing.

I can't stand to read more than a page or so on a computer screen. Gives me a headache. The flexibility of a book is just too nice. Read in the car, on the hammock, wherever. Scribble a note, underline a passage - it's your book. Not sure if the Kindle offers that. As for my kids, at 16 and 22, they still love to sit down and read books. I hope they never stop.

I remember that when I started using the computer I needed to print out a hard copy so that I could edit on paper. I couldn't imagine ever being able to edit a document without having the paper (and pen) in my hand. Now that computer screens are big and easily adjustable, I find that I read much more off the screen - I would never have imagined that I could comfortably read large articles or documents without paper in my hands. I figure I'm adapting ......

Also - as an overactive public library user, the smell of books is sometimes very unattractive....

I'm curious about trying the Kindle....... (maybe with some "eau de livres"?)

Amen al. You can give a book to a friend when you're finished (or your friend can give one to you). You can borrow it from the library. You can lose it. Reminds me of those sales pitches at the dawn of the PC age: "Put all your recipes on your PC!" Food-stained index cards are obviously superior.

Every few years, the composition instructors in my department select a new writing handbook. It's a big contract and the book reps compete heavily for the business. This year, they all touted their electronic companion formats. One even had the whole handbook on a little USB drive -- that would be great as a supplement, but students would have to choose b/w the hard copy or the drive.

One problem I have with digital texts is that they're less inviting, less easy to skim through. So a student with some vague instinct that her sentence has an agreement problem is either going to have to know exactly what to look up, or she's going to have to understand the value of skimming several different possible chapters on her computer screen.

That same problem is magnified with online library searches. In a digital search, you enter a term and find some sources. The more specific you are, the more narrow the return; for that to happen, you have to already know something about what you're looking for. There's not a lot of serendipity involved, unless one follows up links. But in a library, once you have your call number for a book that fits your search, you then find yourself surrounded by texts on the same and related subjects. A treasure hunt ensues. I'm still learning how to encourage that experience in the digital world with my students.

I have no interest in electronic books, for all the reasons people have mentioned. For work, I will always print off a hard copy, and for recreation; there is more to the experience than just reading words. I suspect that electronic books will not become popular until we dinosaurs die off. And if books still don't die the death that those with a vested interest in the electronic format hope for, there's always government intervention. If they can ban the incandescent light bulb, why not the book. Why the carbon foot print of War and Peace alone ...

The act of folding ... with respect to the page printed large ... [the] intervention of folding or rhythm, that which initially causes a closed page to contain a secret; silence remains in it ... the folding back of the paper and the undersides this installs, the shadow dispersed in the black lettering ... the virginal folding back of the book ... such is the feminine form of the book, protective of the secret of its hymen, the frail inviolability [preceding] the introduction of a weapon, or letter opener, to mark the taking of possession [before] the consummation of any encroachment ... the fact is, in the actual case, that, for my part, however, on the subject of pamphlets to be read according to common usage, I brandish a knife, like a cook slaughtering fowls

I have heard a number of positive reviews of the Kindle, particularly for the electronic newspaper and magazine subscriptions. That feature appeals to me much more than the book feature.My problem with the Kindle is that if I buy a book, I want the book to mark, copy, lend, annotate and so forth. There are limited facilities in the Kindle to do that, but never so freely as a with a paper book.Also, I am a library user. I probably check out and read 10 books for every one I purchase. I don't want to pay full fare for a little mystery novel or potboiler that I'm going to read once and then forget. If the Kindle had a facility to rent a book, say $1 for a month, I'd be much more tempted to use it for light reading.

One problem I have with digital texts is that they're less inviting, less easy to skim through.

I haven't really had that sense. I've been reading material off computer screens since I was very small, so I've sort of grown up with the idea that books can be digital as well. Unlike SteveR, I can sit for hours and hours on end flipping through books online, e.g. from Project Gutenberg. I think the only one I ever printed off was a copy of Paradise Lost, which I wanted to bring on a trip. And nowadays, with laptops, I don't even have any incentive to do that. I also read a fair amount of text on my cellphone (sometimes including this blog).

Digital texts may be hard to skim through if they're on something like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle. You can flip through, after a fashion, on the Reader, because the numbered buttons will take you a tenth of the way through, a twentieth, and so on. But that doesn't really work.

A purely digital text, on the other hand, is actually very easy to flip through, since there's the scroll bars right there. Over the years, I even developed a kind of skimming technique, where I'd highlight blocks and fragments of text as I went down the document. Now, I've got a Toshiba M700 tablet PC, with the touchscreen option, and it's even easier to flip through, since I just flick a finger, and the thing scrolls. This is particular useful/fun with long Adobe PDF documents.

I entirely agree about the sensory experience of books, and their smells. I have some 17th and 18th century books that are wonderful to read because of the variations in the texture of the paper, the impression of the type on the paper, the worn-smooth leather bindings. Wonderful experience, though it can be distracting because the sensual experience is sometimes more interesting than the subject of the books.

"Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is."

Not true. Smell only seems so powerful because it is so specific; it has to be exactly the same smell, exactly right or it doesn't trip the memory circuits. Vision and hearing are more fuzzy, more impressionistic. Smell isn't.

I would love a workable ebook. Frankly, as one who went through the rigors of graduate school and still maintains a healthy dose of research in a field chock full o' dusty old manuscripts (archaeology), the advent of electronic versions of journals has been an absolute godsend. I don't need to keep a few hundred photocopies of older articles in a filing cabinet; I can go to my university library's web site and grab a copy of whatever article I need -- and if I don't have it, no having to work a trip to the library into my schedule. Instead of pawing through various bound volumes, I can do a search for articles.

I wish more older (and newer) academic books were electronic. So much easier to search for particular quotes and then copy-and-paste them when I need to quote directly.

Still, the paper versions have their advantages. The screen is still harder to read than a piece of paper and thus far is still more portable. I can't make marginal notes on an ecopy either.

OTOH, for entertainment reading I'd go for electronic in a second if they fix the readability issue. As it is, with rare exceptions I'll read a novel or nonfiction book and then throw it in a pile to take to the local used book store. What a waste of paper! And space, since I don't get to the used book store all that often.

I didn't think I'd make the transition to music files from CDs either, but it's been relatively effortless. I still buy some CDs because mpgs don't quite have the quality for stuff I listen to on my home stereo, but for the bulk of my music purchases, it's files all the way.

"Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten."

My wife inherited boxes of her father's books after he passed away. He was a cigar smoker and usually wore a bit of after-shave.

The beautiful smile on her face when she opens one of her father's books and catches a whiff of long-ago smoke or cologne is something that can never be caused by an electronic book. Seeing a few cigar ashes between pages, or spotting a drop of coffee stain brings her closer to her father. A Kindle can't do that.

I have a shelf of technical manuals that could serve very well if loaded onto a Kindle for use int eh garage, shop and field, where books and DVD-containing laptops don't function well. That would be a very good use for a Kindle, I think, especially if the manuals could be updated and supplemented periodically.

I still have the copy of Elements of Style purchased while I was a high school student. It's now ratty, but remains a keepsake because of the marginal notes, doodles and telephone numbers of then-girlfriends. The memories it provides cannot be replaced by an electronic book, no matter how easy to use.

I understand all the problems of reading from a computer screen. As a lawyer, when I have to read a document of any complexity, I print it out. And yet, I like my Kindle. I've read two books on it so far and regularly read the Wall Street Journal on it.

It's not perfect, and I sometimes have difficulty getting it to recognize my flash card, but I would hate to give it up.

When you buy a book you own the book and you can read it whenever you like. You can lend it to a friend. You can sell it. A book is always compatible. But the last 35 years of recorded music have shown, anything electronic is obsolescent.

Ponder the words of Richard Stallman:

We still have the same old freedoms in using paper books and other analog media. But if e-books replace printed books, those freedoms will not transfer. Imagine: no more used book stores; no more lending a book to your friend; no more borrowing one from the public library — no more “leaks” that might give someone a chance to read without paying. No more purchasing a book anonymously with cash “” you can only buy an e-book with a credit card. That is the world the publishers want for us. If you buy the Amazon Kindle we call it the Swindle or the Sony Reader we call it the Shreader for what it threatens to do to books, you pay to establish that world.

I recently read a couple of novels, entirely on-line, thanks to Baen publishing's habit of putting a selection of back catalog titles online for free. The experience makes me wonder how many people who "can't read anything long" on a computer screen, might be using old fashioned CRT monitors, or have their screen resolution improperly set for their screen.

I too used to get headaches squinting at the vaguely blurry text on the average monitor as opposed to the crisp lines of text in the average novel. That at least is a problem of the past.

Sorry about the double post. I've not seen the Kindle yet. If it's too dark I can completely understand that it's not optimal. But just because the Kindle isn't optimal, doesn't invalidate idea of reading on, say, a laptop (with a nice bright, but not glaring display of course).

Ideally, what I'd like to see is college texts made available electronically, at a fraction of the price of their hardbound competitors. That, and electronic copies of, say computer reference manuals, seems to be the perfect niche for electronic readers.

But the last 35 years of recorded music have shown, anything electronic is obsolescent.

ASCII text. A stalwart of the digital era for forty years. I still take almost all my notes in ASCII.

Anyhow, regarding borrowing and sharing and all that, if there's one thing the past ten years have taught us, it's that if you encrypt data people buy for single or limited use, people will crack your encryption. Look at MP3's -- for years, people tried to lock down digital music, with Apple's crippleware or Microsoft's ironically named "Playsforsure" copy protection. And look at us now! Naysayers said it would never happen. Optimists said it would. And Amazon now sells unlocked MP3s. I have one playing on my computer now in fact. Even Apple -- whose total commitment to the vision of a completely locked-down and controlled computing environment makes Microsoft look like Hapsburg bumblers -- has given in and offers unlocked MP3s.

If anything, things are better for the consumer now than they were before -- no more scratchy third and fourth generation copies. If a friend likes the music you're playing, you can make them a perfect a copy (at least, a perfect copy of what you have). And if they feel guilty about it, they can get a copy themselves. Don't have to hunt through back catalogues and used music stores to find it.

Obviously, books haven't come as far as music has, because devices like the Reader and the Kindle have only emerged recently, in the last two years, unlike MP3 players, which have been available since at least 2000, if I recall correctly, and maybe earlier (I think I got my first MP3 player in Seoul in early 2001, and there was already a huge variety of devices available then). I have a pretty high degree of confidence that books will follow MP3s eventually. The presence of a single dominant party, like Amazon, in the electronic bookselling business (analogous to Apple, in the digital music business), is probably going to retard that somewhat, but I don't really have much doubt that it will work out to our benefit in the end.

School textbooks should be online. That whole market needs to go belly up. High school kids shouldn't be lugging home and slowly destroying 40 pounds of books every day. College classes shouldn't be able to force the purchase of a $120 tome which becomes completely worthless the last week of school. That racket would be transformed by e-books.

Only marginal doodling will be missed.

I might find e-books useful for some of my reading. But the aesthetic pleasure of holding a book and turning the pages one by one is not small. Like receiving a typewritten family letter at Christmas instead of a handwritten one, something is irretrievably lost when the sensuous part of books is remaindered.

ASCII text. A stalwart of the digital era for forty years. I still take almost all my notes in ASCII.

But ugly to read. And unable to display illustrations. But there are formats that are ubiquitous enough that you can be highly confident they'll be readable in the future (and/or translatable to a new format). Html, PDF, and Word, at least, are as future-proof as JPG images from your digital camera.

The real problem is DRM/copy-protection. Your Kindle books are tied to the device and will become obsolete as soon as it does. I'd be quite happy to by unlocked e-books that I could easily transfer to any device I owned (now or in the future), but not copy-protected Kindle books.

But there are formats that are ubiquitous enough that you can be highly confident they'll be readable in the future (and/or translatable to a new format). Html, PDF, and Word, at least, are as future-proof as JPG images from your digital camera.

One of the things that would make me a little cautious about PDF and Word, certainly, and possibly even HTML is the rate at which the standards continue to change, or seem to. PDF seems to go through a number of changes every time Adobe decides they want to sell a new version of Adobe Acrobat, adding new and different largely useless features. Word, of course, with Office 2007 (or was it 2008?) has become almost unrecognisable (docx), to the point that, as I understand it, non-Microsoft systems like Open Office have difficulty rendering it properly due to errors in the specification. And once-plain HTML now gets enhanced with all kinds of awful Flash. It was bad enough when it was just Java but Flash is just an abomination when people start using it for menus and other basic navigation. I don't have a super-high degree of confidence that these formats will retain perfect backwards compatibility and inter-system operability for an extended time into the future.

ASCII changes too, to be sure. And nowadays most of us would tend to use unicode rather than the original ASCII set per se. But it changes very, very slowly. And it's simple enough that you can look at the underlying bits and bytes and figure out exactly what's going on.

I largely agree with Pogo's comment of 3:57 p.m. I can easily see some exceptions, but I especially think we'd do a much better job at making sure public school kids had up-to-date textbooks, and that every kid had one, if they were digital. It would also put an end to the huge backpacks I see on the kids at the nearby bus stop.

I don't know that the costs will change, however. I expect publishers will charge as much for the digital rights as they will for that overpriced hard copy. And the used textbook market could conceivably disappear.

My main issue with books as a kid was always that I had to reposition myself in bed every time I crossed to the other side of the spine. Holding a particularly thick book open -- especially one with the text too close to the spine -- also sucked (especially when eating at the same time).

I pined for a book that could somehow always have the text on the same page, so that once I got comfortable, I could stay there.

While I don't think the Kindle is there yet -- and the cost is definitely a bit much -- I'm not married to books as a reader, any more than I'm married to corks as an oenophile.

Dammit, now Ann has featured Simon's "Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is" comment, further propagating this erroneous notion. Perhaps I didn't state the case strongly enough, so I'll quote from my friend Luca Turin's excellent book on the science of smell called The Secret Of Scent:

"The first reaction of most people when the subject of smell comes up is to mention its 'evocative' power, and to illustrate it with an anecdote about Granny's perfume. But the peculiar thing about smell cannot be that it evokes memories, because just about everything does. How many times, for example, has one felt the pleasant pang of nostalgia upon hearing a pastel-coloured Bacharach melody gently rain down from the ceiling speaker above an airport loo? Ever tried going out for dinner with the sister of a girl who dumped you and feeling those slightly rearranged facial features touch your heart when the light is right?

No, the special thing about smell is that it is idiotic in the proper sense of the word, namely unique. There are no exact equivalents in smell, you have to hit the tiny nail smack on the head or you'll miss it by miles. That's why the event is rare, and that's why we notice it. If what did it for you was "This Guy's In Love With You", no amount of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" can stand in, and your ex's sister might as well be a complete stranger. The uniqueness goes right down to the molecule level. As I've said, there are no synonyms: no two different compounds out of the hundreds of thousands made so far have identical smells. Much less with mixtures: what was special about Granny's perfume is that, unfortunately for you, it was Guerlain's first version of "Chant d'Arômes". It smelled divinely of peachy skin, and no other floral lactonic before, during or since ever hit that exact spot. And furthermore, they messed with the formula some years ago when the bean-counters took over, thereby putting your late grandmother's smell permanently out of reach. You are now officially at the mercy of fate, waiting for that moment fifteen years from now when you'll walk past a stall in a flea market, pick up a small sample bottle in a tattered black and gold box and stand there transfixed. Or maybe you won't go to the market that day."

Sorry Ann, you're just the wrong generation for it, I guess. I love my Kindle, its much easier on the eyes than a computer screen, unless you're in dim lighting. I read with a bedside lamp, and its awesome and simple. I love being able to order books in milliseconds, and I love getting the WSJ delivered to it every morning.

But the most important thing is... it really is easy to read and less straining to the eyes than a computer screen, as well as easier to position in your hand than a book.

I have a Kindle, and I think that it is a great device... for a specific purpose.

That purpose is for reading most of the non-permanent stuff we get. I'm talking magazines, newspapapers, paperbacks, etc. Anything that I'd ordinarily spend $5 to $10 for and be done with in a day or two.

I've only bought one reference book for the Kindle and I don't plan to buy any others. I want my reference books to be BOOKS that I can loan out, etc.

As far as the reading experience goes, mine is far different from Ann's. I find the Kindle to be very easy to read in a variety of lighting situations. If the light is dimmer I just make the fonts bigger. The contrast is sufficient... easily as good as most trade paperbacks. And, the fonts are sharp and very readable.

My ideal Kindle would have a larger screen, revised buttons for next and previous page, a much better UI for the book catalog that would allow me to search and sort using a variety of book metadata, the ability to charge from the USB port (instead of requiring the wall wart), and would support DRM MOBI format files (so I could download ebooks from my local library without the hassle of having to go thru a 3rd party program that converts the format to something I can read on my Kindle). It would also have a native PDF reader.

I have a couple of blog posts on the Kindle, here and here, explaining my thoughts on the Kindle and where the future of e-publishing is going. Please give them a read and let me know what you think.

Pogo, interesting to compare his prose with Paul Johnson. Turin's a very interesting guy, a fabulous writer, perfume fanatic, airplane enthusiast, and biophysicist who may have helped figure out the mechanism of olfactory reception, which is an extraordinary combination to say the least.

Jeez, I'm in agreement with Althouse AND the French. A sign of the End Times, I'm sure.

I don't read literature or novels, because I'm just not interested in fiction, but I do have an amazing collection of music history and music theory texts - my collection would put some colleges to shame - some of which are ancient.

I have a special chair I read in, with a special lamp to read by, and the experience of opening up one of those old books is like a form of total sensory immersion: The feel, the smell, the look and the environment I created all add up to a complete and satisfying experience. No electronic book gizmo will ever replace that for me, and I love my gizmos!

iPods, iPhones and iMacs are great, but I would be completely uninterested in an iReader... by Apple or anybody else. If the service allowed me to download ancient codices I'm interested in - complete with illuminations and illustrations - I'd rather read them on my 23" Cinema HD display than a little tablet anyway.

A perspective from somebody "too young to be a boomer but too old for generation X" :-):

I do much of my reading for pleasure on a Palm TX. Got it for half the price of the Kindle in a post-Thanksgiving sale. Screen has the contrast I want, it's backlit, doubles as my PDA and RPN calculator, and I can even read Email and blogs on it. I even found a Backpack client for it.

One of the font settings seems to be just what my astigmatic eyes want. And the device is so small and light that I can carry it on my belt and read literally anywhere, anytime.

In fact, I've basically stopped reading paperbacks since my eyesight simply isn't what it used to be. And hardbacks just are a pain in the neck to lug around, not to mention way too expensive outside the USA.

The screen and device are just too anemic for scholarly reading (at least in the sciences). Most scientific papers I read on my Macbook's screen (or the large external monitor) --- there's a really nice application called "Papers" (http://www.mekentosj.com) which is basically "iTunes for scientific literature".

Some things I still prefer to do with a red pen on a double-spaced dead-tree copy --- editing papers, for instance, as I'm freer to annotate, do calculation in the margins,... Also, I absolutely cannot stand Micros**t fourletterWord (real physical chemists use LaTeX :-)), so if somebody sends me a draft manuscript in f-Word I end up editing on paper rather than spend half the time working around M$ bugs and too-clever-by-half "features".

I get a Kindle, and finally Ann posts an update about it, 6 months later, woo!

Unfortunately, I didn't get it through her auspices and she won't be getting credit, since SHE DIDN'T SAY. Put out a link or something, you know?

After playing with this e-reader for 5 days solid I have to say, it rocks.

Let me tell you why you might be a good candidate to get one

1- Just today, Amazon dropped the $400 pricetag to $359. I called Tech Support and asked for a refund, which they were happy to give.

I fancy by Christmas it'll be down to a more do-able $299, and as I told the techie, if they can do it for $200 one day, it'll shoot through the roof.

2- It's Linux-based, so no virus worries.

3- It has EVDO (Sprint) web browsing for FREE. I read online that there are rumours Amazon will charge for it, but Support said absolutely not.

4- Subscriptions for blogs are tops 1.99 each, and Best Sellers are 9.99 each.

5- I've discovered the motherlode of eBooks online, including just out ones. This after I bought 20 Amazon Kindle ebooks. I'm in heaven and my pocketbook is alongside.

Look, the Kindle is not for everyone.

- Do you read books?- Are you a commuter or spend long periods waiting for anything?- Would you like to give your laptop a breather?- Do you like the lightness of 10.3 oz in your hand, with the capability of 1000s of audio, mp3s, and ebooks with a memory card?- Do you like the aesthetics of Apple?

This Kindle thingie is amazing. It combines the three most important values in American life:

Convenience. Speed. And independence

I've had clunky e-readers before, and this doesn't begin to compare. But we all are futurists, everyone of us, products as we are of the modern age.

We can project to a time when Kindle 1.0 will seem retrograde (no colour monitor, etc.).

Well of course books have a smell, especially after I've spilled coffee on one. I have no intention of abandoning the treekillers altogether, but I do aspire to get a Kindle just as soon as I'm as rich as Ann Althouse. I'm thinking it'll work great most on most occasions, greatly increase the time I spend in coffee shops, and significantly increase my reading volume.

But that doesn't mean you never again lounge around with a musty codex and a glass of scotch.

I have been debating on whether or not to get the Kindle for a few months now. Thank you, because this post and your vlog convinced me not to. I have the same sort of "where it is" type memory that you mention in your vlog, and I know I would miss that immensely.

For me, reading a book is about the whole experience (including smell, even after a house fire left the surviving books reeking of charcoal). A really great book can literally transport you into another world....and I just don't think the Kindle would let me do that. Again, thank you!

vbspurs said..."I am a voracious reader. 1 book a day in summer is my pledge."

Sure, but you are reading The Secret Seven series. ;) I just wolfed down Steve Vogel's history of the pentagon - I thoroughly recommend it - in a week, and that's fast for me. I'm not as fast a reader as I'd like to be, and it's something that's never improved with practice.

(including smell, even after a house fire left the surviving books reeking of charcoal).

The only downside to this sensory thing on Kindle is that e-readers don't allow you to share your books with others, once you've finished with them.

So if you guys don't know about it yet, go to Bookcrossing.com and sign up. You "leave" books anywhere you want, with a sticker, and like the Dollar Bill lookup site, you can see who has it, and it's future travels.

However, if people consider themselves even remotely environmentally-friendly the Kindle and its cousins are a no-brainer.

Jennifer Aniston flashes her Kindle in public, before she gets into the Prius.

Vicki, I'd have given (or at least lent) you a copy. The other Vicki in my life is using it as a mouse mat, which is really the best use for it (Greenburg's book covers much the same book, and is far better researched and written). Actually, the really weird thing is that Toobin was on C-SPAN to promote the book shortly after its release, and he came across as even-handed, witty and fun; I kept wondering if he's just too incompetent a writer to come over that way in print, or if the book required a totally different approach. Either way, I really found his book leaden and very, very reflective of Toobin's biases. You can be slanted and still readable (Mark Tushnet, for example, who also wrote a book about the Rehnquist Court, or the enchantingly effervescent Ms. Lithwick), but it's a trick the book can't pull off. Since you've already ordered it - Sorry! :(

I'm in the Palm T/X camp, at least for pleasure reading.Nice backlight, high-res color screen -- and dropping down the brightness is trivial for reducing any glare.

In addition to current books, which may be encrypted {spit - though some like eReader's let you also read on PC} there are tons of public domain you can get for free from ibiblio.org (Gutenberg et al)

FWIW the problem with reading on many PC LCD monitors it that the backlight makes solid white backgrounds too stark -- some PC ereaders let you pick different off-white backgrounds to reduce eyestrain.

Also, if you have an LCD PC monitor, make sure a) your display properties resolution is set to the exact pixel resolution of the screen hardware for the crispest pixels, and b) play with the setting for font smoothing under Effects-- for an LCD it should be ClearType. Some prefer it off.

I haven't read a paper book in years. I also had a friend to whom electronic books were anathema. I recently helped him replace his notebook computer because he spilled a drink on it while reading a book.

The Sony e-book is a throwback. I use my Palm device for most of my text books. For anything where graphics are a consideration, I use my notebook with Mobipocket Reader.

Kind of mean to trash the woman who told us how much she liked the Kindle. She was trying to be nice, and we were technically at a wine tasting, so she obviously wanted to mingle and meet people. Now she's being ridiculed online for randomly interrupting us.

As you can tell, I'm high on my Kindle, and I haven't stopped shouting Hosannas since I got it.

The one thing I forgot to mention, Chris, is that the Kindle can be mistaken for a book, if you use the cover for it.

It comes with a leatherette cover, so if safety is a concern with a laptop being stolen (the hassle of losing all your bookmarks, sensitive info, etc.), the Kindle is much less expensive in the long run.

For God's sake, my old Palm IIIc does better that, and you can pick one up for less than a hundred bucks. Probably a lot less, by now.

Although of course I agree that a paper book is a more pleasant sensual experience in general, I have recently discovered that in some ways my Palm is a more comfortable read in bed at night, easily held in one hand and either scrolling at whatever precise speed I like (I know, you think you hate auto-scrolling, but how long have you really tried it?) or paging along with a gentle pressure from my thumb. I'm one of those people who would have thought they would get eyestrain or headache, etc., but you know, I'm not getting either. And there are hundreds of great books on Project Gutenberg to get through before I have to buy one. And if the ones you have to buy for Kindle cost more than an actual used book, it's really hard to see the point of it.

Just wanted to add that I, too, land squarely in the Palm TX camp, and ebook reading on this device is fine for me at half the cost of a Kindle (with a boatload of additional features that the Kindle can't match.)

For anyone else using the TX, I can recommend most strongly the PalmFiction software for ebook use. They have extremely easy-on-the-eyes fonts included, and more options than you can shake a stick at.

You might see if your library's homepage offers a similar programme (or has a partnership with a larger library consortium).

I can have up to 10 e-books checked out, with a 19-day expiration period each. When it expires, you just re-check it out.

It's entirely free, of course.

But needless-to-say, there are literally HUNDREDS of free ebook links out there, including the illicit ones like torrents and storage file sites.

It all depends just how much you want a portable copy and your own sense of justice (like mp3s).

Mjsharon:With the free .pdfs I just mentioned, you can give them to a friend.

Ann: You and others mention the darkness of the screen.

I have several paperbacks next to me, and whilst I concede that hardcover books have lighter shades of paper (in the case of law texts, they're almost pure white on black), there is virtually NO difference between a paperback page colour to the Kindle background colour.

So if you guys read paperbacks, you won't even think twice about the Kindle's readability.

Original Mike: Some grad texts, very much yes.

I found a technology site which has a huge amount of texts, all in .pdf, downloadable via Rapidshare and other (free) sites.

John Clifford: You nailed it. The Kindle and e-readers are there for a specific purpose. Clearly it's not meant for National Geographic purposes, yet, but it's much better than old copies of Time and Newsweek lying around like a doctor's surgery.

Gershom: That's great you got the Palm TX!

Which reminds me, the Kindle has 5 different sizes of fonts. You can go from the tiny tiny 1, to the mega-senior citizen 5. No need for bifocals when reading this puppy.

I read it in the default size 3, BTW.

I've read many times that the Kindle only has one font. Wrong. It has 6 different kinds, the primary ones being Caecilia to Neue Helvetica. Click on the links to see if you like them.

The Sony e-reader, e.g., only has 3.

Listen, I may sound like Jeff Bezos' younger, much cuter sister, but it's just because I'm a Kindle owner going on 6 days.

I'm excited about my purchase. I don't care if you buy it or not. I'm not offering any links to reward me with selling it to you.

I just want you guys to know this is a cool gadget, which will revolutionise the way e-readers do business.

I considered the Sony Reader when it came out as I use a few dozen references in PDF format when I work on the road, but the Kindle seems much more functional. The added ability to access books on the go, blogs, and still keep multiple references with me is exciting.

Especially now, what with the airlines charging for one checked bag and more for two, I just can't see carrying hard copy volumes with me anymore.

That said, my wife and I are major bibliophiles and will always get 'real' books to peruse at home. We currently live in an apartment and have somewhere around 900 books (perhaps 40-50% are fiction).

I, too, prefer reading from a 'real' book, but I embrace the flexibility that the eInk-powered alternatives provide for travel.

I don't have a Kindle because I distrust Amazon's DRM strategy. I have a Bookeen Cybook which is significantly less tied to DRM and to a single company.

The cybook copes beautifully with funky accents and should (I haven't had reason to check) support east asian characters too. It does support Greek and Cyrillic assuming the document is UTF-8 and not using some sort of semi-proprietary codepage.

Ann apparently find the screen too gray and lacking in contrast. 'A chacun son gout' Personally I think the Cybook screen (same as the Kindle) is no worse than cheap newsprint or 2nd hand paperback books in terms of contrast.

Someone mentioned an eee in the commentss. The eee is a great little computer, this comment is being written on my eee, but it has a few major drawbacks as an ebook reader. Firstly the battery life is 3 hours not 3 weeks. Secondly the eee's display is almost impossible to read outside in daylight and thirdly the eee takes a while to start up so you can't just pop the eee out of your pocket to read while standing in line to play your part in security theatre. Related to that holding the eee while standing is not comfortable. Holding a Cybook is like holding a book and it is quite simple to read one handed

PS for the voracious ebook reader such as Victoria a bonus plug - www.baen.com/library - for loads of highly addictive free SF

Actually, I just thought of soemthing. It's a bit similiar. It's like when I get a new CD in the mail. Ya know, you crack open the package, and, yeah, alright, TESTAMENT! Bad ass, gonna crank some \m/ METAL \m/! Tear through all the packaging, that stupid sticky type 'round the edges that always leaves nasty gunk behind and then crack open the jewel case to pull open the CD only to be hit with what smells like anal rot. Ya throw the disc in the CD player but, honestly, now you're buffeted with some vile stench every time you crack open the case. Can hardly bring yourself to pick it up to see the track listing. Hell, this might affect future listening enjoyment because of the fact that you're disincentivised from picking the blasted thing up again. Maybe in six or seven months you can try again. Same with books. I wanna read ideas, not smell the sweaty, unwashed hands of bookbinders from previous generations.

Chris - I said "Here is a horrible backlit photo of a random woman who interrupted us to tell us how much she absolutely loved her Kindle. Both Ann and I told her she was nuts."

You said "Now she's being ridiculed online for randomly interrupting us."

I think your version is a bit harsh. This is the very short version of how we picked her preferences of the Kindle apart. It was an interesting exchange as the woman kept telling us how great the Kindle was and we kept telling her how much we didn't like it.

It is just my writing style, not intending to be mean in any way. I don't feel the need to trash or ridicule people online - I am a much bigger person than that.

I love my kindle. But then I'm forced to use it due to my visual impairment. I think that's what it takes to get used to the Kindle - no other alternative. But once you make the switch, you realize the ease of use.

So it doesn't have a white background because it's not a screen per se. It isn't a monitor, it can't do a lot of dynamic things - that's the point actually. Otherwise the battery would last all of 2 mins.

But for me, given my lack of choice in large print, the Kindle has helped me keep my sanity. I have a much larger selection of books to chose from them I would otherwise.

I've also been using the "Experimental" features - basic web, ask kindle and music playback. I find the Kindle to be the most important piece of hardware I own. Besides, the books are a lot cheaper - saving me money to boot.

Evan, I would still find it easier to read on my computer screen. My problem with the Kindle is that I do find it hard to see (and my vision isn't very good). It's true that you can enlarge the print and carry it around more like a book, so I understand that. Still, don't you wish it was black print on white?

I have been a bookworm for most of my life. On average I have read about 3-5 books a week since I was around 11 and discovered science fiction books. Since I am now in my 50's you do the math!

My bedroom overflows with hardback and paperback books but my favorite source for books now is electronic as they are available instantly and for less than paper books. While I agree that paper books are more somewhat more flexible e-books are not far off. I buy Mobipocket versions from Baen books which I can read on my computer or Treo (phone).

Mobipocket allows you to create bookmarks, add notes, search for words and perform lookups to dictionaries. If you keep your phone sync'd with your computer these notes and bookmarks will transfer between the two.

As to your complaint about grey on grey for the Kindle, I haven't tried it but I do sometimes have to increase the font on my computer if I am not wearing my contacts. This is something you can't do with a paperback book with small print. But I believe the Kindle also allows for these features.

Yesterday I reread John Ringo's March to the Stars and We Few on my computers (desktop and laptop).

By the way, www.baen.com shows that the Mobipocket book format I use also works on the Kindle.

OK I absolutely LOVE my Amazon Kindle. I'm on the computer all day looking at a colored screen and by the end of the day I have no desire to look at even a TV set.

I read books here and there and enjoyed it. Would take my books to the gym while doing my cardio and was always fumbling with the pages and keeping the book open and straining my eyes to read the small font. Now with the kindle, I have it on the largest font, just press a button to go to the next or previous page..................What a difference it made for my reading at the gym.

Here are the benefits I have found with it:

I feel I read faster because I make the font bigger

If I don't know a word I just look it right up on the Kindle's dictionary

I don't have a PILE of books laying around crowding my house

You can check your e-mail plus more on the kindle

I like the black & white screen because I feel I'm not straining my eyes after being on the computer all day

I can send or download long documents that I have to read but hate to have to have a pile of paperwork within my hands. Can read this pile anywhere and one of the best times for me to read is right before bed so guess what, "my bedroom no longer has piles of paper around."

Can download books within any area in the USA

If you are a reader this device is a NO BRAINER! LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT. Best gift I've ever received

Something I think may have been left out, I can't possibly read without a pen (I hear this is possible for those of you who enjoy fiction...which I don't even begin to understand). I like to write in, mark up, write notes of importance IN the text I'm reading...as it makes it very useful and easy to use them for reference later. And no, that highlight crap on e-readers..not even close. Also, with a book I don't have to hurry to finish what I'm ready out of fear that my battery will die, books don't have batteries. Think of the trouble you'd be in if you forgot or grabbed the wrong charger...you'd be screwed, I'd be reading. And, while water, for whatever reason (reading in the rain, dropping book in pool) may make my book cosmetically unappealing to some, I won't have to replace it....all my wet books I can still enjoy...though just slightly more crispy.